To persons suffering from it, urinary incontinence is both an embarrassment and a hygienic problem. The problem results from malfunctioning urethral sphincters. The malfunctioning can result from a congenital malformation or trauma to or disease of sphincter nerves or muscles. When the urethral sphincter fails to function properly uncontrolled or inadequately controlled bladder drainage can occur.
There have been many attempts to provide an artificial sphincter for patients suffering from a malfunctioning sphincter. These include proposals for implantable and inflatable urinary incontinence prostheses none of which have been fully satisfactory.
There have also been attempts at other methods of control including elastic constrictors, magnetically controlled urethra compressors, and clamps such as the so-called Cunningham clamp and improvements on it. All these attempts utilize devices which can themselves cause trauma, irritation and generalized injury to other tissues.
Other approaches have utilized catheters which are coupled to the patient to provide, for example, a drain tube into a vessel attached to the patient's leg. Such attempts have been undesirable for hygienic and other reasons.
Most prior attempts restricted the urethra until a patient took some action to physically relieve the restriction. The action might be the release of a clamp, the movement of a magnet, the stretching of an elastic, or the decompression of an inflatable device. Other proposals relied on the muscles of the patient's bladder to provide a force which would overcome the restriction and allow the passage of urine.